Google Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen Review: Pricey but Packed With Features

7.9

Nest Learning Thermostat 4th Gen

Like

• 
  Room sensor included
• 
  Smart schedule adjustments
• 
  Excellent display
• 
  No C-wire required

Don’t like

When my colleague Tyler Graham got a first look at Google’s 4th Gen Nest Learning Thermostat and told me Google hoped consumers would see it as a piece of art, I was skeptical. It’s a thermostat. How pretty can it be?

I’m not ready to eat my words, but friends who have seen it on my wall immediately commented on how nice it looks. I’ll admit: It’s a nice-looking thermostat.

But it’s not on my wall to look cool. I have thrift store art for that, which comes with a much lower price tag than $280. (Google did provide me with a unit to review.) The real test of a thermostat isn’t in what you see, but what you feel. And this latest model is keeping me pretty comfortable.

The 4th Gen Nest Learning Thermostat comes with a lot of the features its predecessor had, but some things are new or at least newly emphasized. Chief among them is the room sensor, which you could’ve gotten with the third-generation model but now comes included with the latest version. This inclusion turns your thermostat into a whole-home climate-control system.

Other changes might feel more aesthetic, such as a dynamic display that shows you more information (like the outside temperature or the time) as you get closer to the thermostat. It’s a compelling device, but it’s also the most expensive model on the market. 

Nest Learning Thermostat 3rd Gen vs. 4th Gen: What’s new?

I’ve had the 3rd Gen Nest Learning Thermostat on my wall for a few months, so I managed to get pretty familiar with its features. The newer model has quite a few new things. This isn’t just a minor update, it’s an entirely new device. Here are some of the bigger differences.

A different app experience

One of my favorite things about the 3rd Gen model was the Nest app. I found it really simple and easy to use, and I got really comfortable with it. The 4th Gen model has me stepping outside the comfort zone of the Nest app.

Instead of keeping the Nest app, you’ll be using the Google Home app to take control of the newest Nest thermostat.  And the Google Home app is good, especially if you have other Google devices in your home, but it is a different experience. I find it a bit duller, and there’s more going on because Google Home isn’t built specifically around the thermostat. It still gets the job done though.

Dynamic home screen

The face of a smart thermostat is a great place to display information. Most thermostats will make it easy to see what the temperature is and what it’s set to, but others will allow more customization — the current weather, the time, etc.

The 4th Gen Nest Learning Thermostat allows you to customize the information that shows up on the face of the thermostat, but it also uses a technology Google calls Dynamic Farsight to make it even more useful. The thermostat can sense how far away you are and change its display accordingly. If you’re farther away, it shows very little information, maybe just the current temperature inside your home. The closer you get, the more it’ll show. That could be the current temperature, the temperature outside, what the thermostat is set to and more. 

This is a nice change that makes it easier to understand more about your home’s comfort settings without having to touch a device or press a button. It’s also customizable, allowing you to decide what information is most important.

Smart scheduling

Some smart thermostats will adjust temperatures automatically and learn from your behavior. The 4th Gen Nest Smart Thermostat lets you set a schedule (maybe 76 degrees from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 72 degrees overnight), and it can adjust that schedule as it learns your behavior. In theory, the device should learn you well enough that you don’t have to touch the temperature at all.

In my testing, I’ve found that the Nest does a decent job of anticipating what will make me comfortable. My apartment has two floors with wildly different environments, so it can be tricky to make the temperature right in the room I’m in — and the Nest isn’t exactly privy to my preferences for being in the office or in the living room at a given time. But the scheduling works well, especially when you combine it with the external sensors for other rooms.

A thermostat for the entire house

With this latest generation, Nest is finally going all in on external sensors by packaging one with the thermostat. You could’ve bought separate sensors with the previous generation of the Nest Learning Thermostat, but you had to want an external sensor. Now you’re getting one in the box — as is also the case with the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium and the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat. This push may be what people need to embrace the idea of a whole-home thermostat.

I’ve mentioned that my apartment has vastly different comfort levels depending on whether you’re upstairs or downstairs. As soon as I saw the external sensor in the box, I knew I could take a crack at fixing that issue. It’s been a hot summer in Ohio, and my upstairs bedroom has been particularly hot and stuffy at night. I installed the sensor in the bedroom and immediately got a better idea of just how stuffy it was. At times, it was several degrees warmer than the living room immediately below. With a glance at my phone, I could see not just what the thermostat’s temperature was, but what the temperature was upstairs as well, giving me a better idea of the comfort level of the whole apartment.

But it doesn’t stop there. When I set the schedules in the Nest, I was able to set the nighttime temperature cooler — but also make sure it used the bedroom sensor to determine the temperature. Some smart scheduling, like making sure to start the sleep setting a little earlier to help the bedroom pre-cool, has helped me get better sleep.

While the Nest only comes with one sensor, you can still buy others and put them in other rooms. Google sells its second generation sensors for $40 apiece or three for $100. 

The bottom line: Is it worth the price?

If all thermostats were free, the latest Nest would be hard to beat. It packs nearly all the features of the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, with some nicer touches and the flexibility of not needing a C-wire. As a high-end thermostat, the 4th Gen Nest Smart Thermostat reigns supreme.

But it’s also the most expensive model I’ve tested, retailing for $280. That’s not cheap, and that figure only includes the one external room sensor. Energy Star estimates a smart thermostat can save the average household about $50 per year, so you’re looking at it taking more than five years for the energy savings to cover the cost of this thermostat. Compare that to the Amazon Smart Thermostat, which costs only $80 — potentially paying for itself in less than two years.

While we often think of smart thermostats as a way to save money, they are also ways we control our homes and make them our own. The 4th Gen Nest Learning Thermostat serves as a piece of art and an attractive centerpiece for your climate control system. It can display information about the weather inside and outside your home in a compelling way, and it offers you the power to see and manage the comfort of various rooms at once.

If your goal is saving money, there are better options out there. But if you’re looking for a thermostat as a feature-rich gadget, this one should be near the top of your list.

How we evaluate smart thermostats

Most of the home energy products we test and evaluate here at CNET have a lot of numbers attached to them — the efficiency of solar panels, the power output of batteries. Not so with smart thermostats. All of the smart thermostats we’ve tested can perform the basic functions of turning your heater on when it’s cold and your AC on when it’s hot. While some of our scoring is based on tangible, mathematical data, it’s mostly about the myriad ways you can interact with the thermostat to get the comfort level and energy savings you want.

We’ve experimented, tested and handled each of the thermostats we’ve reviewed, either on a testing rig that allows us to simulate the thermostat’s function and explore its features or in our own homes. 

The 10-point scores we give smart thermostats are based on these metrics:

• 20% is based on the available smart home connectivity and other features, including geofencing and external room sensors.
• 20% is the price, with a formula that rewards less expensive products. Devices that include a room sensor are scored based on their cost minus the retail cost of buying a room sensor.
• 60% is completely subjective, based on our assessment of what the device offers, how easy it is to install, how easy the app or interface is to use and what features it has that might be non-standard for thermostats but helpful or useful for consumers.

Choosing a thermostat is an incredibly subjective and personal choice, and our goal in scoring is to highlight those products that do the most and do them well. Your buying decision should focus on your priorities, which might not align exactly with ours, so be sure to look at more than just a score when choosing a device you will probably interact with almost every day.